


Fire and Gold

by Lomonaaeren



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Beltane, Fey Character, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Mild Angst, Multi, Threesome - M/M/M, Top Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 00:37:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14344284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: Harry Potter has gone fey. And not in the usual meaning of the word. Draco and Severus, who have apparently been chosen as his lovers, or maybe prey, struggle to cope with their status as Beltane comes ever closer.





	Fire and Gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bgreenwivy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bgreenwivy/gifts).



**Title:** Fire and Gold  
**To:** bgreenwivy  
**Author:** Anonymous  
**Pairing/Threesome:** Harry/Draco/Snape  
**Rating:** NC-17  
**Warnings:** * None *  
**Story notes:** Some angst, Hogwarts “eighth year” (so both Harry and Draco are 18), creature fic (Harry is an elven being)  
**Word count:** 8500  
**Summary:** Harry Potter has gone fey. And not in the usual meaning of the word. Draco and Severus, who have apparently been chosen as his lovers, or maybe prey, struggle to cope with their status as Beltane comes ever closer.  
**Disclaimer:** Characters are the property of JK Rowling, et al. This was created for fun, not for profit.  
**Betaed by:** Linda and Katie. You guys are _awesome.  
_**Author's Note:** , I chose your prompt about someone changing into a fairy creature, and how the others coped with it. I hope you enjoy.

**Fire and Gold**

“You noticed something wrong with Potter?”

“Yes.”

“Good. It’s not just me, then.”

For long moments, Severus didn’t respond, but kept staring into the cauldron in front of him. Draco didn’t know why. He wasn’t the Potions professor any longer. Slughorn had been determined to hang onto that position, and since the curse on the Defense post had apparently dissipated with the Dark Lord’s death, Severus had been teaching Defense.

Draco had been thrilled at the thought that the Gryffindors would suffer. Now, though, the thought of stepping into the same classroom as Potter made his back teeth itch.

“Has he actually _said_ anything to you?” Draco asked, when Severus hadn’t stirred the cauldron for a full minute.

“One word.”

Draco blinked. That was more than he’d got. “What was it?”

Severus turned around. He looked as pale and tired as he ever had during the war. “Beltane. The day before the anniversary of the battle,” he added.

Draco scowled at him. “I have _read books_ , you know. And I know that Beltane is a day when fairy creatures are stronger than usual,” he added, showing off a bit. “Do you think it’s the day he’s going to—make a move?”

Severus sneered, and a little life seemed to come back to his face. “You speak as though we would be lovers and not prey for one of the elves, Draco.”

“Well, I don’t know which one I am, exactly.” Draco kept his tone casual. He wasn’t about to show his confusion on more than the terminology he should apply to Potter’s lingering glances. “I came to you because I saw him staring at you in the same way. And you’ve seen the color his eyes turn. And the way his fingers seem to be _longer_.” He paused, because Severus kept sneering, and then added, “Have you thought about what it might mean to have fingers that long up your—”

“This is _entirely_ too childish a discussion to be having with you,” Severus said, and flung open the door of his chambers using only his hand. “Out. _Out_.”

“And you’re not being childish by ignoring the fact that we have a Potter problem,” Draco muttered, but he only muttered it when he was out in the corridor and away from the listening spells that Severus draped the door to his quarters in.

“You have a Potter problem?”

Draco shivered. That voice had silver harmonics that made his ears ring, and it bounced from wall to wall with more echoes than it should have. He turned his head sharply and saw Potter lounging against the wall not far away from him.

“Potter,” Draco said, but his voice croaked, to his shame.

“Draco.” Potter’s smile was direct and sharp and seemed to reveal more teeth than it had the last time Draco really looked at him. His eyes flashed, and yes, there were flecks of gold in the green, making his eyes look even more like spring leaves than they usually did. Potter pushed slowly off the wall.

Draco stood there instead of running away. That probably made him stupid, but on the other hand, _he_ wasn’t the one determined to ignore reality.

Potter came to a stop in front of him and looked him over in a leisurely way. Draco wanted to lick his lips. That would make things worse, though, so he stood there until Potter reached slowly towards his mouth.

Then Draco caught his wrist and said in a firm voice, “What is this really about, Potter?”

Well, a firm voice was the plan. The plan went out the window as Potter gave him a lingering brush of fingers across his palm. Sharp tingles spread up Draco’s arms and down to his legs, and he inhaled and let Potter go.

“I think you can figure that out,” Potter murmured. “I already gave the clue to Severus, but I suppose I owe you one as well. _Beltane_.”

He shaped the last word with a sinful mouth against Draco’s ear, and then leaned away and smiled as innocently as if he was the same Gryffindor who laughed with his friends in the Great Hall over ridiculous jokes. “See you around, Draco.” Off he went again.

Draco stared after him. Sometimes, if not for little moments like that—and their encounter had probably lasted less than two minutes total—he could think he was imagining it. Potter’s eyes hadn’t _really_ turned gold. He hadn’t _really_ moved like a stalking predator or made Draco react just by touching his palm.

Except for the fact that he _had_. And Draco couldn’t forget it.

Draco swallowed roughly. There was something he couldn’t forget, even though he wanted to know more than ever what had happened to make Potter act like this.

Beltane was only a fortnight away.

And that knowledge had never made his body burn like this before.

*

Severus kept his eyes away from the Gryffindor part of the classroom as he lectured on the uses of the Fire-Spitting Curse. There was no disciplining Potter since the war. If he tried, the papers would scream that he was trying to make their beloved war hero behave like a normal student, and there would be outrage. And the same thing would happen if he gave the brat a failing mark, or reacted to his taunting at all.

It was taunting, to make his eyes flash gold and his hands spark pleasure in Severus and his voice sound husky. There was no way it could be—

_Serious? Fey? Put the thought out of your head, Severus._

There was no way, truly. So Severus lectured, and called students other than Potter up to the front of the classroom for a demonstration of the Fire-Spitting Curse, ignoring the chiding look that Miss Granger gave him. There was no disciplining _her_ since the war, either, and her assumption that she had the right to stand up against anything she disagreed with.

When Longbottom had fried Finnigan’s feet, Severus said, “Class dismissed. You will write a two-foot essay on the uses of this curse in battle.”

“When’s the essay due?”

Weasley, still so predictable. Severus sneered at him. “Tomorrow, of course, Mr. Weasley.”

That made more than one student gripe and groan, but Severus couldn’t enjoy it. He’d made the mistake of looking into Potter’s eyes. And they _were_ gold and green, shining like emeralds reflected through sunlight.

Potter inclined his head and murmured in a voice deeper than his normal one, “Do you think many of us have a chance of passing NEWT Defense, Professor?”

“Few have as good a chance as you do, Potter,” Severus said, and reveled in their dropped jaws before he gave his parting shot. “On the _practical_ portion, at least.”

That made Granger grimace harder than ever, but Potter only smiled, a slow, sensual gesture that caused uneasy prickles to run up and down Severus’s spine. He stood, stretched as if he wanted to show off his muscles, and murmured, “I find that I have a good grasp of the theory when I need to, Professor.”

And he flexed his fingers, and his eyes went to Severus’s groin. Severus turned sharply away. He would not _allow_ himself to respond.

So Draco was right that they had a Potter problem. He was _wrong_ in assuming this would change anything. Severus would be the teacher, and if necessary, he would teach Potter the dangers of playing with fire.

*

“What’s going on, mate? I know that I’ve been busy with Hermione and studying for NEWTS, but you seem…different.”

Harry smiled at Ron as his best friend slipped into a chair across from him. It was late enough that Hermione, who had created the “perfect” sleeping schedule for herself so she wouldn’t sit up too late studying for the exams, had already gone to bed. The firelight was dim. Harry could still see the colors of the chairs and walls with perfect clarity, though.

He laced his fingers beneath his chin and eyed Ron. Ron looked back at him calmly. He would probably still be appalled when he found out who Harry’s mates were, but not enough to snap the way he would have a few years ago.

“Do you remember that creature of Hagrid’s who bit me a few months ago?”

Ron blinked. “Yeah. But I thought that was a thestral.”

Harry shook his head. “Other people in the class who I know didn’t see death saw it. Hagrid said that he thought a thestral bred with something else. Something—fey.” He turned his hand over and let down his guard for the first time in months other than for brief glimpses in front of Draco and Severus.

Ron swore aloud as he watched Harry’s fingers lengthen, his eyes turn golden and glowing. Harry knew his hair would have acquired red tints, too, and that his ears would look a little more pointed.

“Huh. Does it hurt?”

“Not really? Sometimes it hurts to conceal it, or the smell of certain foods nauseates me, or I hear sounds so sharply that it’s painful. But not really.”

“What do you think you are, then? An elf?”

Harry smiled. Ron was taking this even better than he thought he would. “Something like that. I read up on as much as I could find in the library, and I think the elf business is pretty close to what I am, but not completely the same.” He hesitated. “One thing I know is that spring and summer are important. I nearly went mad on Imbolc.”

“Imbolc? Oh! In February?”

Harry nodded. “I don’t think it’s the beginning of the seasons according to the calendar. I mean, not the one we have now. The calendar of older holidays, though, the ones that some people celebrated before the coming of Christianity? I think that’s right.”

“So the next one is what? May Day?”

“Beltane. The first day of May, though. Yes.”

“And what’s going to happen then?” Ron looked a little nervous as he asked the question.

Harry shivered. “I’m going to claim my mates.”

“Um. More than one? You know who they are?”

“Yes. Draco and Severus.”

Ron did choke this time, and for a second, Harry thought he might have to rescue him, or at least shoot out a jet of his new, flexible kind of magic that could calm and soothe people. But Ron recovered on his own and said, “ _Merlin_ , mate. Do they know?” He seemed to be battling a grin.

“They don’t know exactly what I am or why. But yes. They know.” Harry had to smile at the remembrance of the way Severus had turned away from him and Draco had stared at him with a mixture of fear and lust. They thought they could run. It was adorable.

Ron began to snicker, then laugh aloud. In the end, he shook his head and said, “This is weird as hell, mate, but if anyone deserves to have happiness, it’s you. I’d tell Hermione soon, though. She only hasn’t noticed that you’re hiding something because of exams. She’ll be hurt if you keep it from her.”

“I’m planning to tell her before Beltane.” And Harry _was_. He just hadn’t found the right time yet. Hermione worried constantly. Lavender had actually told Harry that Hermione was muttering the names of runes in her sleep the other night.

Ron stood up and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good night, mate. Elf. Whatever you are.”

“Just Harry, Ron.”

Harry continued watching the fire after Ron went to bed. He was fascinated with the flames; he almost swore he could see the future in the way they danced.

He would accept and adapt to life, being an elf. It mostly resulted in heightened senses, a few new magical tricks, and the awareness of facts like who belonged with him. Even his “madness” on Imbolc hadn’t been that bad. A few hours of running around the Forbidden Forest and working magic had cured it.

On Beltane…

He suspected that he might do more than that.

This time, he thought he saw his own face, full of a smug smile, in the fire.

*

Draco hesitated, then approached Potter in the library. He’d been sitting there and studying a huge book with a title stamped in gilt that Draco couldn’t read for hours. His friends had gone to dinner long ago. Draco supposed this was the best chance he’d get.

Potter glanced up at him before he got there. This time, his eyes were a normal, calm, reflective green, but they still looked feral. “What can I do for you, Malfoy?”

The way he wrapped his tongue around Draco’s name was obscene. Draco stood there and stared at him before shaking himself free of it. “I know you’re something fey.”

“Yes, I am. Well done.”

Draco almost staggered against the force of the resistance he’d thought was there and turned out not to be. He swallowed and said, “I want to know what’s going to happen on Beltane.”

Potter smiled, placed the book on the table in front of him, and stood. He wandered over to Draco and ran his fingers slowly over his collarbone. They stirred sparks of heat so intense that Draco’s vision clouded. Draco swayed and awaited the moment when those fingers dipped down underneath his shirt.

It never happened. Potter leaned towards him and breathed into his ear, “I’m going to claim you as my mate. You’ll feel pleasure like you’ve never felt and accept me into your body. You’ll be warmed and held and protected for the rest of your life. You can always refuse.” And he stepped away abruptly and turned back to his book.

Draco narrowed his eyes, staring at Potter. He studied the book in a way that made Draco think the studying was genuine, not feigning to get out of justifying himself. When Draco found his voice again, he asked, “How do I refuse?”

“You tell me no.”

“But that could harm a fey creature, couldn’t it? I know it must be your magic that chose us, because there’s no way that you would choose us of your own free will.”

“My magic is great enough that I’ll survive a rejection, although it’s not pleasant, of course. What do you really want to know, Draco?”

Draco licked his lips and whispered, “Why me? Everyone else since the war—everyone except Severus, they act like I’m tainted and they avoid me. There’s people all over the world who would be thrilled to bond with you, either because you’re _you_ or you’re fey. Why me?”

Potter looked up and gave him the kind of tender, dazzling smile that Draco hadn’t realized he’d been waiting for. It seemed to warm him all the way down to his toes. He opened his mouth, found he couldn’t speak, and closed it again.

“Because I think that you would make a loving partner if someone dared to love you. Because you’re beautiful. Because we’ve always had an intense relationship and that’s probably the reason my magic sought you out in the first place. Because you’re prone to value someone who values you and you wouldn’t be upset that I’m fey now.” Then Potter shook his head and tapped the book he’d been reading. “Those are all possibilities that this book is suggesting, anyway. I don’t know which of them is actually true.”

“Or all of them?”

“That’s a possibility, too.”

Potter seemed to want to go back to his book. Draco left the library in a daze, feeling as if his feet were skimming through warm clouds.

This sounded like a potential dream come true. Which, of course, probably meant something would go horribly wrong any moment now.

But it was more than Draco had had half an hour ago.

*

“Draco suggested that I seek you out. I wouldn’t have done it on my own.”

Potter smiled at him. Severus fought not to flinch and run at the sight of that smile. It did seem as if Potter’s teeth had grown longer, and possibly more pointed. But so much of that could be his own imagination that he wasn’t comfortable just trusting his memory. It wasn’t as though he had spent hours every day staring at Potter.

“I know, sir.” Potter leaned back against the corridor wall. Severus had used tracking spells to find him as he came down from the Owlery. Potter seemed to find neither the cold wall nor the sight of his Defense professor looming in front of him uncomfortable. “Do you want to know why my magic chose you as my mate? That’s what Draco wanted to know.”

“I am not your _mate_.”

“My magic says you are.”

“I _belong_ to no one.”

Severus winced as he heard the brittleness in his own voice. He hadn’t meant to let that through. From the way Potter’s eyes darted to his left arm and abruptly softened, he’d figured out the reason for it. But he only nodded and said, “I see Draco didn’t explain that you can reject my claim. I’ll live through it. It would be best for both of us if you didn’t, though.”

Severus, having recaptured his self-control, sneered at him. “What would _I_ get out of it, Potter? I’d be yours to order about.”

“No.” Potter said it so firmly that Severus stared at him, momentarily taken aback. Potter smiled at him and stepped closer. “Mine to love.”

Severus recovered enough to shake his head. “Do you understand the kinds of chains that love puts on someone else?” he asked, and then laughed when Potter only continued to watch him. “I have loved one person in my life, and it made me suffer under such chains that I nearly gave up everything else in pursuit of her.” His hand went up to his throat for the first time in almost a month. Something about the antivenins he had swallowed over the years had let him survive Nagini’s poison, but nothing could get rid of the scars that lingered on his throat.

And none of it would ever bring Lily back.

“I do understand that you have bad experiences with it, Professor.” Potter sounded as though he was struggling with the respect, but it was there. “But you ought to know that once I bond with both my mates, then I have power that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Greatly increased magical power. Enough to defend both you and me.” He paused. “And Draco. I suppose that you haven’t told Draco about what you think of him yet?”

“I have certainly told him that he is a talented student in Potions and Defense, and not always the epitome of a Slytherin—”

“I didn’t mean _that_ , Professor, and you know it. Come, now.”

Severus gritted his teeth. He didn’t know how Potter had discerned that sometimes he admired Draco’s fine, graceful form, or that he had found himself sometimes smiling at one of his jokes. “I do not need to admit it to him since I will _not be bonding with you_.”

“That’s your rejection, then?” Potter’s voice was unexpectedly formal. He stood still in front of Severus, his head tilted back and his eyes fixed on him.

“I didn’t say it was!”

“Then part of you is at least attracted to the idea of protection, if not me.” Potter tilted his head down now so that his hair obscured his scar, but not those eyes that seemed brighter than ever. “Just think about it, Professor. That’s all I ask. But not for long. Beltane is only ten days away.”

He turned and walked up the corridor. Severus scowled at his back and left.

Of course protection was attractive. There were still people, not least the escaped Lestrange brothers, who wished him harm. To venture beyond the bounds of the castle, to walk in public and know that his status as Harry Potter’s— _consort—_ would oblige them to look away, to have all the money he needed to buy whatever he wanted and perhaps even an increase in his own magic…

To have Draco.

To have Lily’s fierce, bright green eyes looking at him while they shone…

Severus decided, firmly, that he needed to have a drink.

*

“Thank you for coming.”

Harry tried to keep his voice calm and serious. He knew that if he burst into joyous laughter as he wanted to do, Severus, at least, would be profoundly offended.

Draco nodded to him, nervously. They stood on the boundaries of the Forbidden Forest, where Harry had invited them by owl some hours ago, and Draco kept looking into the trees as if he thought some shade of Voldemort had remained behind to drink unicorn blood. Severus, with his arms folded and his face mostly hidden, looked like a pillar of black stone.

“What did you want to show us?” Draco tried to speak with a brave front, Harry thought, but his voice broke and he coughed.

“If you will follow me.”

Harry turned and walked straight into the forest. He heard the others shuffling behind him, and the sharp sound of a question from Draco, and the sharper sound of a silencing word from Severus, and then they followed him. Harry tilted his head, aware of their uneasy steps, aware of the way the trees turned towards them.

But here, he was master.

He walked through a wood that glowed as bright as sunlight to him, and emerald and agate walls of leaves and bark drew back and let him have passage. He stretched out his hand to caress the edges of hanging vines, and they rubbed against his palm. He caught the eye of a centaur, and he bowed his head and trotted away.

 _He recognizes the fey,_ Harry thought. _Or an elf, or whatever I am._

He didn’t know the full glory or the full name of what he was yet. He supposed that would have to wait for the night of Beltane, or perhaps for the night of Beltane next year, if these mates refused him and he had to hunt out other humans whose souls sang to him.

Harry ignored that thought as best he could. Neither of them had refused yet, and that was all he could say.

He finally came to their destination, a great tree with branches intertwined with four other trees. He felt Severus tense behind him, and smiled a little. His professor—his older mate, Harry would have to learn to think of him—was wary enough to realize when something was unnatural. Draco seemed oblivious.

 _For right now,_ Harry thought, as he turned around and watched the expressions chasing themselves like clouds across Draco’s face.

“What—” Draco asked.

Harry lifted a hand.

The trees began to sway and move. Draco stepped back until he almost bumped into Severus, but then he stood there with his mouth wide open and wonder stamped in his eyes more clearly than Harry had ever seen it on a human face. He watched as the trees parted in front of them and wove themselves into clear stairs, humps of wood becoming smooth and flat and leading upwards. The leaves became shining walls, and there was a door when Harry gestured for it to be so, formed of the sturdy oak.

“What’s up there?” Draco whispered, when the trees had stopped moving and the forest was as still as it ever got.

Harry answered with his blood singing. “The entrance to a secure home that no one can challenge and no one except us can ever find. I crafted it in February when I could feel the magic rising in me and I had to do _something_ with it. And there’s an entrance inside it, too.” He waited until Draco scowled at him, and then added, “It leads to Avalon.”

“There is no such place.”

“You know _Avalon_?”

How typical the responses were of his mates, Harry thought, smiling. Severus would be skeptical of love and humor and joy and pleasure touching him with warm hands. Draco was open enough, even now, to relish the thought of entering for the first time into a sanctum that wizards thought long lost.

Harry only inclined his head in response to Draco’s question, although he was looking Severus in the eye. “Come with me and see. You don’t have to enter it if you don’t want to. But as my mates, you should know my secrets.” And he turned and began to walk up the steps, through the rustling curtains of leaves, towards the light that shone with a glow like pearls burning underwater.

*

“We have to.”

Severus said nothing and stood there. Draco watched Potter’s back walking away and felt as though he already carried Draco’s heart with him, literally stretching it out of his chest. God, to see _Avalon_. There was no other wizard who could say that he’d done that—unless there was someone else around who was the mate of a fey creature.

But then they wouldn’t tell. What mattered, Draco thought, was that _he_ would get to see it.

“Stay here if you want to,” he said, and made up his mind. He and Severus had sort of acted like a single unit before this, both making the decision to meet Potter and follow him, but now, he thought Severus might actually give up this chance. Draco wasn’t going to. He set his foot on the first step.

A breeze brushed past him. It smelled like roses in sunlight. Draco smiled and walked faster.

“Draco!”

Perhaps it was fear for him, or only fear of being left alone in the Forbidden Forest with no Harry to hold off the wild beasts, but Severus was following. Draco hid a smile and lifted his head. The opalescent light caressed his face. Draco sighed. For the first time since the war, some chained part of himself stirred and lifted wings towards the sun.

He felt like he had when he was young and knew he could challenge and conquer the world, except better, because now he knew _this_ wasn’t based on false pretenses.

Severus was silent as he walked beside him, but when Draco glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, even his stern features had softened. Draco smiled and reached out to run a hand along his arm.

Severus snatched his arm away and gave him a scandalized look. At the moment, breaking into a run up the steps, Draco could hardly care.

*

He had never imagined Avalon.

The land that stretched before him was flatter than the land he hadn’t imagined, the grass and the water almost indistinguishable from each other. The air was sweet and slipped cleanly through his lungs, not cloying the way Severus had thought it would be when he first smelled it. And he could feel the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck lifting.

It wasn’t truly the scent of roses or the light that made him react that way. It was the _magic_.

Draco had plunged into the grass straight away, through the arch of branches that framed it from Potter’s hidden house, and gasped. Severus had gripped his wand, but Draco had only shaken his head at him and said, “It’s—calming. I can’t remember feeling like this even when I was in my room at home.”

“Of course you have not felt safe in Malfoy Manor since the war.”

Severus considered that the mere introduction of reality, a reminder of where they had come from and why they were here, but Draco rolled his eyes at him and said, “I’m talking about childhood.” He spread his arms and took a deep breath of the magic-tinged air, then sprinted towards a curling, glittering spray of what might be grass or ocean waves.

Severus took a step forwards, then checked himself. He didn’t believe Potter would let harm come to them, and Draco deserved the pleasure of discovering this on his own.

“And you would say that you don’t care for him?”

Severus turned his head away uncomfortably from the level of knowledge in Potter’s eyes. They didn’t look like Lily’s anymore, he thought numbly. They were too shining for that, too fey. “You know that I do,” he whispered. “But I can never say it to him. Why would he want to romance a bitter old professor, nearly his father’s age?”

Potter’s hand caught his, soft and warm as the air around them. “Perhaps for the same reasons that I do.”

“Draco isn’t fey.”

“No, but he can imagine things you are and things you can do for him.” Potter’s gaze was incandescent now, resembling the pearly world around them. “Things he doesn’t want to be without.”

Severus turned his gaze back to Draco. The glitter turned out to have been water after all, and Draco was splashing in it, laughing. He shook his head, and Severus watched the drops fly away from his hair. They seemed to move more slowly and thickly than ordinary drops. It was the first time he had seen Draco happy since…

The war.

“There are books here that have been lost to wizards for generations,” Potter said, drawing his gaze again. “There are languages spoken here that you’ve never heard. They make potions out of the air and water, elves do, and they make flowers of wisdom bloom in your brain that could never bloom at home.”

Severus found himself giving some odd mixture of a smile and a sneer. “You are trying to bribe me.”

“No. Only tell you what you’ll win if you come to me.”

Severus looked back at Draco again. He found himself nodding. “For Draco’s sake. Not because you tried to bribe me. I will be your mate and join with you at the fires of Beltane.”

Potter’s hand cupped his cheek and drew him back to look down at him. “You could have simply demanded to come with me and watch over Draco while he’s in Avalon, not become my mate, and I would have granted it. Or perhaps you didn’t know that you had that option? Would you like to reconsider?”

Severus swallowed enough air to choke in an ordinary world. But in this one, it simply cleared his head and helped him make his decision. “It is my choice.”

Potter bowed his head and brushed his lips over the back of Severus’s hand. Perhaps it was merely because they were in Avalon, but it didn’t seem a ridiculous gesture.

*

“Hermione. Can I talk to you?”

Harry had waited until he could catch Hermione in the Gryffindor common room and her timing spell had worn out so she could take one of her mandated fifteen-minute breaks. She smiled at him as she snatched up a sandwich stuffed with slices of apple and cheese from her satchel and bit into it. Harry knew she had also perfectly calculated the amounts and kinds of food she would eat. “Hi, Harry! Of course!”

Harry quietly cast privacy spells around them, and turned back to find Hermione looking at him with concern, although she didn’t stop eating. “Is something wrong?”

“Just something I wanted to tell you a while ago, but you always seemed to be busy...” Harry figured there was nothing for it. The spells would prevent anyone from seeing what he was as well as keep them from overhearing his words and Hermione’s. He relaxed the hold on his glamour and let his fey self come out.

Hermione stared with her mouth open while he transformed, and Harry averted his eyes from mashed-up apple and cheese. Hermione hastily swallowed and said, “Sorry, didn’t mean to show you that—but, _oh_! Harry! What happened?”

Harry reminded her of the bite the crossbred thestral had given him, and ended with, “I don’t know why I turned into this. I think I’m some kind of elf, but the books in the library weren’t exactly helpful. Anyway, I wanted to tell you that Beltane is in a few days and I found my mates, so I’ll be claiming them then.”

“Mates? How many? What sexes? And how can you not be sure that you’re an elf? Did you read Hazel Medwyr’s _Unlocking the Mysteries of the Fey?_ It’s incredible, she details all the different kinds of fey and she has a guide to them. Have you gone through that? Are you sensitive to fire and iron? Did you—”

Harry burst out laughing, and in a second Hermione seemed to recognize the humor of the situation and laughed, too. But she held out her hand to him and said in concern, “Are you all right? You seemed to be, so I didn’t want to act like it was a problem. But are you?”

“Yes.” Harry turned her hand over and squeezed it. He would be fine as long as he didn’t try to do more than that right now. His skin had begun to tingle and spark with anger every time someone who wasn’t his mate hugged him. “And to answer one of your questions, fire can’t harm me. I’m going to leap through it at the Beltane celebration. I’m fine with this.”

“Really? It’s another thing that’s changed your life around. I hoped—I hoped you were done with that, after the war.”

“So did I.” Harry sighed a little. “But this is what gives me some kind of comfort and peace. I _know_ that I can love the people I chose as my mates. For once, this change in my life is giving me that, the chance at love and pleasure.”

“It’s about time! Who are your mates?”

“Draco and Severus.”

Harry had never actually seen someone inhale bread through their nose before.

“And all of you are fine with this?” Hermione asked, when she’d finished coughing and snorting and Harry had cast a spell that let her breathe. “I mean—Professor Snape? Really? It seems he might refuse just to spite you.”

“I think he was on the verge of doing that,” Harry said thoughtfully, remembering the way Severus had refused to pay attention to him at first. “But I showed him Avalon. I showed him what my magic can do. And he would do a lot to be with Draco. Maybe even to be with me, I’m not sure yet. He can see the advantages of this.”

“That sounds awfully cold.”

“Don’t worry, Hermione, it will be hot.”

Hermione hit him on the arm, and then her timer sounded and she grabbed her books and gave Harry a glancing touch to the shoulder and tossed over her own as she marched off, “Have to study in my room now! It’s important to vary your place! But I’ll see you at dinner this evening, Harry, and congratulations! Remember not to let it interrupt your studying too much!”

She said those last few sentences outside the bubble of the privacy charms, and immediately other Gryffindors asked him what she was congratulating him on. Harry smiled and went up to his bedroom himself rather than answer their questions.

Changing into an elf had given him a lot of things, and one of them was the ability not to give a fuck what most humans thought.

He lay back on his bed and shut his eyes, already feeling the fire shimmer around him. _Five more days. Just five more._

*

Draco stared out at the blazing bonfires on the grass of Hogwarts between the castle and the lake, and wondered how many of the students actually knew that their fervor for Beltane this year was because of the fey among them, and not just because, as the Headmistress had put it, “we deserve to have a celebration of life.”

Then again, if they didn’t know, it was one more secret to hug to himself.

“You look wonderful.”

Draco turned and gave Severus a slow, appreciative smile. Severus wore body-hugging robes of sable that Draco would have thought too warm, but they looked wonderful on him, and anyway he could always keep cool with charms. “So do you,” Draco said, and moved his hand carefully down Severus’s arm.

Severus stepped away. Draco nodded and faced the fires once more. He could feel the air surging with gold, sometimes see golden hazes around the dancers, and knew it wouldn’t be long now.

And then, there he was.

Harry stepped out gracefully between two fires so close together that the corridor between them seemed filled with flame. He bowed to Draco and Severus, and if other people thought that bow was for them and tried to return the gesture, it didn’t matter. Draco’s eyes stung in a way that had nothing to do with the smoke.

Harry’s magic reached out for them.

Draco gasped. It was like drowning in the air of Avalon. It was like burning in its water. He reached out greedy hands and grasped it and pulled it close, and it wrapped around him, warm, alive, thick as clouds.

Severus swayed on his feet, Draco saw when he looked towards him. He swallowed, and then seemed to regain his normal color again. When he sneered, it would probably have looked convincing to anyone but Draco.

“Magic tricks,” he said.

“Not tricks. Not for us.”

Draco wasn’t sure what inspired him to say the words, but he did, and Severus eyed him before he nodded slowly. Draco turned back in time to see Harry leap over the nearest fire, his body flowing with swiftness that he couldn’t have mustered before, his eyes burning to reflect its color. Someone screamed.

Draco didn’t scream. He didn’t hesitate, either. He followed Harry into the dance.

*

Severus watched them for a time.

Harry leaped over the flames, tucking and rolling with an inherent grace that Severus tried to convince himself, and failed to convince himself, had been there all along when he rode a broom or cast magic. Draco seemed to pick some of that same grace, and although fire licked at his feet, it never touched him. Harry spun to face Draco, and smiled, and clasped his hands.

_They will not want me. They are both young things, they can leap like that if they want. I am too old._

But he watched, and then he took a step nearer, because actual golden fire was beginning to outline Harry and Draco’s bodies. For a second he thought it might have been an ignored spark smoldering in clothing. Then he watched it flare up and highlight their faces with beauty, and he ceased to lie to himself.

_What more could they become, if I joined them?_

_If I touched them, they might lend me some of the fire._

And Severus was not sure what motive was stronger, but he shed his sable robes and revealed the thin, light ones of green linen he wore underneath them, dancing robes. Someone else screamed at the sight of those. Severus ignored them, and slipped between the fires that should have been too close together to slip between, joining Harry and Draco.

Draco smiled fiercely up at him.

Harry smiled...

There was no word for that smile, and no word for what surrounded Severus when he reached down to clasp hands with them. A white gold, a cool furnace, a storm of flowers. The magic swept him up and carried him away.

*

Harry danced.

He felt the eyes of others on them, but it didn’t matter. _He_ had eyes only for his mates, and the edges of the fires. Those edges had begun to sway in a manner that would astonish the humans in a moment. It could not astonish him.

Severus’s beauty could. The line of Draco’s chin could. How Severus let himself take a cautious step towards the fire, even if he drew back, could. The way Draco whirled in a circle, spinning on an agile foot, could.

And then the moment arrived.

Harry leaped. He didn’t come back down. The edges of the fires swarmed up towards him and ignited beneath him, forming a path of flames that carried him across the sky. More shrieking, and someone tried to call his name. Harry ignored them. He let the ladder curl around him and carry him higher and higher.

There, at the top of the sky, flicking in and out between fire and gold, he danced for his mates and his mates alone.

Harry danced in place faster than any human could. He spun, and let his arms and legs continue in different directions. He reached out and grasped a flame without hurt, and he sang as he bent backwards and the flame bent above him; then they reversed direction and descended in a dizzying spiral to the grass. Harry circled inside the flame, stamping, and looked an invitation into Draco and Severus’s eyes.

They came to join him, Severus more slowly. But it didn’t matter. In a cage of heat and air they lifted higher, higher, higher. The sky all around them was warm, not like the cold heights Harry hit when he flew a broom. That was good. He never wanted his mates to be uncomfortable with what they had chosen.

When they had reached as high as they could, with all the flames in all the fires soaring up to create a hand that cradled a fire-blossom, Harry lifted his arms. Strands of white, blue, gold, orange, red, they rose as thick as cloth around them to braid and hide the inside of the flower. Harry lowered his hands and held them out to his mates.

“ _Here_?” Draco was furiously flushing, although how he could have any redness to his face that didn’t come with the heat and the exertion, Harry didn’t know.

“Yes. Here.” Harry stamped his foot, proving the solidity of the fire-floor, never taking his eyes from his mates. “Will you?”

And surprisingly, Severus was the first one who yielded, and came towards him.

*

Harry’s mouth was as warm as mulled wine.

Draco wasn’t proud of the fact that it had taken him a moment to get over his nerves and join his partners—his mates—but now he was here, and Harry was pressed against him, against both of them, his arms wrapped around them both, turning his head so that he switched kisses between Draco and Severus as if he would never stop.

Draco groaned and drew his head back, then turned to kiss Severus as well. Severus’s mouth was colder and more hesitant, but that didn’t matter. Draco just drove his own tongue in and kept kissing him until Severus started to snog him back, probably out of self-defense.

Then Harry gestured, and all of their clothes abruptly turned to fine ash and left them. The incineration was so fast and pure Draco didn’t even feel it. He gasped in awe, and then looked towards Harry.

Who was beckoning him.

Draco came a step towards him. Another. He stopped and said, “I’ve only done this once.”

“And I’ve never done this.” Harry gave him a shining smile, his eyes coruscating green and gold. “We’ll figure it out.”

And they did.

Draco would swear later that fire eased the way, made his arse soft and slick and ready to receive. And warm, always warm. Even naked, with Harry softly moving over him and touching his flanks and his ribs in what felt like wonder, he wasn’t cold. And then Harry entered him, and Draco’s whole body seemed to be one enormous flush, one enormous flame.

“ _Yes._ ”

Draco’s strained voice sounded odd in his ears. A moment later, he realized Harry had spoken the same word at the exact same time.

Harry rocked inside him, and then he thrust, and then he was all but throwing himself into Draco’s arse. Draco laughed giddily, his head tilted back, his hands clenching at the fire underneath him. He managed to rise to his knees with Harry’s steady urging and patient hands, although he didn’t really know what for. Harry would probably just push him down again, sending pleasure cascading through him all the way.

And then Severus knelt in front of him, and somehow managed to arrange his head so that he could suck Draco’s cock.

Suddenly everything was twice as good.

There had never been such warmth. There had never been such wetness. Draco couldn’t escape anything, couldn’t flee, and for the first time since the war that was okay, it was more than okay, his world danced faster and faster and burned and shone and there was a voice in his ear and magic inside him and around him and—

And he came.

*

Severus slowly straightened up from his swallowing and knelt on the fire that felt like plush, warm carpet to his knees. He kept his head bowed so that not even his—mates—could see his face.

He was so hard that desire burned more in him than pleasure.

Harry remained buried inside Draco for a moment, stroking his sides and whispering. Then he pulled himself out and turned to Severus.

He was still hard.

Severus stood slowly, not showing the relief that burned in him alongside the desire. The flames had burned his clothes to ash. He held out his hands, and Harry drew him close and kissed him sweetly, the sweetness not diminished by the fact that he had to rise on his toes to do it. Then he urged Severus gently to his knees. Whorls of azure and gold rose to form cushions for them. Severus took a difficult breath as he felt the fire creep into him.

“I have—not done this before,” he said.

“Then we’re all learning together,” Harry said. “Just like students and professors should do.”

Severus drew breath to punish that impertinence, and then Harry pushed into him.

The long, slow, exquisite burn was better than any other burn could be. Severus found himself leaning back, sinking down, seeking out his pleasure. Harry made a single muffled, surprised sound into his shoulder, and then thrust deep and lit up Severus’s world.

Draco twisted around on his knees, lithe and quick as a leaping flame, and kissed him. Severus kissed him back, aware that he was panting and his tongue was faltering where once it had pushed steadily against Draco’s and sweat had broken out and ran down his sides, tinted red by the inferno around them.

Harry clasped his shoulders and thrust steadily into him, while Severus remained in an awkward position, half on his knees and half on his haunches, and Draco kissed him and the world began to narrow to a brilliant point of light.

This time, though, Severus was determined that he would not be the only one coming. He waited until a count of four, and then tightened his internal muscles. Harry cried out in bliss, a strange, wild sound, like the song of high wind in branches. It was the first time Severus could remember that something resembling a werewolf’s howl had not terrified him.

He counted to nine this time, in case Harry was waiting for ten, and squeezed once more. Harry leaned forwards to whisper into his ear in retaliation.

It was some hissing elven word, something he couldn’t make out and that touched every single nerve of his spine with spreading pleasure. Severus found himself hurled at that brilliant point of light, but at the same time, he reached back, caught Harry’s neck, and held him still as he squeezed again.

And thrust his tongue into Draco’s mouth at the identical moment. Not for nothing had he brewed the most complicated potions in Britain.

Harry hissed and called out, the sound like the bubbling of a teakettle now. But he was coming, and Severus gratefully fell and joined Harry in orgasm and Draco in contented murmurs into his mouth.

*

Harry slowly opened his eyes.

The fire had dissipated during the night, and laid them back on the earth. They were between the ashes of two of the bonfires, and a soft, hovering gold haze hung around them. Harry smiled. That was his instinctive elven magic; he knew it in the same way he had known that Draco and Severus were his mates. It would keep anyone from seeing them.

Harry wouldn’t have minded, but he knew Severus, at least, would be embarrassed.

He turned his head lazily, and saw Draco awake and watching him. A glint of black under Severus’s eyelids revealed that he was, too. Harry took both their hands, and nodded to their skin. They looked down. Draco’s expression changed to something like joy as he watched the soft golden glow of magic around them. Severus’s face didn’t twitch.

“Your magic’s increased,” Harry told them, almost apologizing. “You won’t be able to hide this. I’m—sorry.”

“You don’t need to be,” Draco said, and kissed him, then Severus. Severus’s frowning mouth grew less under his pressure, and then he sighed and shook his head.

“Perhaps we should have waited until you passed your NEWTS,” he murmured.

“Draco and I are both of age and more than that, anyway,” Harry pointed out helpfully. “We’re here for a year that we wouldn’t even have spent as your students if the war hadn’t happened.”

Severus squinted at him. “Do not imagine that this will make me mark your essays better for the next two months.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Harry said happily, and looked at Draco.

Draco couldn’t stop grinning. “I felt, sometimes,” he said, “after the war, that I should just leave Britain and run away. What good was it, anyway? Severus was the one who told me that I should focus on my studies and use my marks to get some kind of future for myself. And now I have you, too.” He reached out a hand, and Harry took it at once. “Thank you.”

Severus’s hand rose, and his long fingers encircled both Harry’s and Draco’s joined ones. “I am here.”

“And so am I,” Harry said, while the earth under him sang, and the memory of fire licked at his skin, and joy was heavier than the golden haze.

**The End.**


End file.
